Hardly a Soft Science

Psychology is a diverse evolving field, in ideas and the methods adopted over time. However, each psychologist has listened to at least one 'soft' science versus 'hard' science joke in their life. It's when during a 'hard' sciences talk, the famous speaker smirks in a sadistic way and says something along the lines of leaving some things to those people who read books under a tree or call watching people a science. The audience then reciprocates with a collective laugh of agreeing to scientific superiority. This distinction has always intrigued me. Today, I'll share how the science of psychology has contributed to my better life in general. My short experiences with History and the science of conflict resolution gave me additional lessons and appreciation for how fields could be valued in their own regard.

The question of 'hard' vs 'soft' sciences is not a new matter in any way (for a detailed discussion see Hedges, 1987; Howard, 1993) and is addressed in every Introductory Psychology course thoroughly. The main idea put across to students is how the subject of analysis in Psychology is more complex and everchanging, i.e. human beings. Human beings studying human beings makes psychology challenging and hence the science doesn't look as absolute in its answers compared to the problems solved by the older sciences. Terms such as 'finally proven' are avoided and 'good robust evidence depending on particular factors' takeover instead. Unfortunately, this is interpreted as poor science by many non-psychologists. Based on my own span of experience with psychology, let me illustrate a few reasons for why psychology is far from being an easy or 'soft' science.

Different fields have different purposes while still following the scientific framework or at least being a valuable vehicle of analysis. The struggle of being seen as a proper science has been on the mind of Psychology since its inception. Scholars from different fields in the mid-19th century were constantly in search of an apt time for when psychology could be introduced as a science. This basically meant, demonstrating a method that gave results and observable evidence found similarly in the other sciences revered at the time. In the absence or failure of such a method, psychology was sometimes conveniently sheltered under the Arts and Humanities. This was based on the idea of how in Psychology answers sometimes varied depending on sample, biases, ways of categorization, or we didn't always know what was going on. To make this worse, there was a phase of 'trial and error' in the methods used, which was still good information. This took us gently taking from bile colors and head bumps to the advanced multi-method designs beating up one innocent human behavior in an attempt for convergence in ascertaining the accurate pattern of the findings.

Matters of study matter. It's sometimes absurd to even compare what is studied in one science with another. In one of my previous posts, Re-visiting an Old Gem, I briefly allude to this matter in summing up Lewin's ideas. The same principles may be at play. However, at lesser frequency depending on whatever might be the content of study. The presence of variability in data, and what is sometimes apparent in Personality Psychology, is quite effective in illustrating this problem. You'll find variability in Physics as well, but it doesn't really matter or happen as much. For example, weight changing as a function of gravity is for a psychologist is much more common in the changing behaviors and wellness outcomes. When this happens on the moon or another planet for a dead stone, there is usually a good one-time explanation, something that a physicist may be able to explain better. In human behavior, such changes are more frequent but not less systematic in any scientific sense. The methods applied, therefore, carry the burden of the accuracy with which this systematic pattern of human behavior can be revealed. The subject of study sometimes ends up being ahead of its available methods, akin to using an abacus for a complex trigonometry question when the table you need hasn't even been invented. Else the findings look shoddy.

The other issue is of the difference in the purpose of various sciences. When I have to explain this to a child just over five, I say, 'Psychology taught me how to live. Physics, Chemistry, and the Biological Sciences kept me alive.' Once you have built and saved human life, the quality of life is what stares at a never-ending question. In times of stress or changing experiences, emotional challenges, gaining perspective, and best of all, making sense of absurd counterintuitive behaviors, psychology is what has the capacity to build life. Again and again, because once you are able to see your human existence more systematically, the experience is similar to going from a black-and-white television to a colored one. The value of mild distance enabled by the science of psychology helps see life and its problems as a third-person or a narrator in a play, giving hope when no hope is near.

The science of psychology is no less than any science, it's just different, possibly more complex in many ways. Sometimes the question of 'soft' versus 'hard' sciences itself may be a wrong one because we might just be comparing apples and oranges when the focus of discussion should actually be about cultivating a good strong tree of many branches (i.e., methods, interdisciplinary lenses) — a topic all scientists would be interested in forever. Psychology primarily took birth from Physiology and Philosophy, so anything is possible.

References

Hedges, L. V. (1987). How hard is hard science, how soft is soft science? The empirical cumulativeness of research. American Psychologist, 42(5), 443–455.

Howard, G. S. (1993). When psychology looks like a "soft" science, it's for good reason! Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 13(1), 42–47.